EUGENE - Thursday night's game, like the weeks leading up to it, will be all about emotion.

No. 16 Oregon at No. 14 Boise State

When: 7:15 p.m. Sept. 3Where: BoiseTV: ESPN

Ducks to watch

83 TE Ed Dickson: He's been ready ever since he popped up after Jeron Johnson's late hit last year. Dickson caught two fourth-quarter touchdown passes in that game, his best of the season (7 catches, 103 yards). If there is a knock on Dickson as an NFL tight end, it's that his blocking could be more forceful. That probably won't be a concern in Boise.

21 RB LaMichael James: Oregon fans know what LeGarrette Blount can do -- so do the Broncos after Blount ran for 99 yards on 18 carries against them last season. But nobody has seen the speedy, shifty James in a college game. The redshirt freshman will see the field quite a bit, either at running back or as a slot receiver.

Broncos to watch

27 RB Jeremy Avery: What? No Ian Johnson? The longtime Broncos rushing leader is gone, and the job goes to Avery and D.J. Harper. Both have experience; Avery has amassed 1,311 yards the past two seasons while running in Johnson's shadow. Oregon's inexperienced defensive line could open some gaps -- is Avery good enough to make the Ducks pay?

17 LB Winston Venable: He's the "5" in BSU's 4-2-5 defense. Venable, a junior college transfer and brother of San Diego Padres outfielder Will Venable, has won the starting spot at nickel, although he will share time. Not only is that a key position in this defense, but it's Ellis Powers' old spot. Powers, you might remember, made an impact in last year's game.

About Boise State

The Broncos can't play their way out of the Western Athletic Conference, but the rest of the WAC probably wouldn't mind if they did. In the past 10 years, Boise State has ...

A 70-5 record in the conference, 108-20 overall, 64-2 at home, eight 10-win seasons and three undefeated ones. The high point was a 43-42 win over Oklahoma in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl, which captured the imagination of the college football world because of its David vs. Goliath nature and the creativity with which the Broncos pulled the upset.

Boise State has perhaps the most unpredictable special teams unit in the nation, rolling out a new trick play seemingly on a weekly basis. Its offense is predicated on confusing the defense, to catch the opponent in a poor matchup, and the defense is the modern 4-2-5 alignment built to stop the kind of spread offense Oregon uses. The Broncos even hand out a sledgehammer, a la Mike Bellotti's, to reward toughness.

Can the 16th-ranked Oregon Ducks use their desire for revenge to their advantage? More to the point, can Jeremiah Masoli, the cool quarterback that he is, keep that cool in a noisy, crazy blue house with a nation watching?

Kellen Moore, who quarterbacks No. 14 Boise State, plays beyond his years and seemed impervious to the Autzen Stadium crazies last season.

"(Moore) always knows where to go with the ball, he throws a real catchable ball," Oregon coach Chip Kelly said. "He's one of, in my opinion, the top quarterbacks in the country."

Kelly would put Masoli in that group, too. His quarterback opened the offseason Boise State smack talk by saying, "This year we'll take it to them." That was about as close to Namathian bravado as Masoli gets, and he insists he holds no grudges after a late hit gave him a concussion on his first pass of last year's game and he couldn't finish the first quarter.

This is a far different Masoli than the version a year ago -- even before the concussion.

"He's a master of that offense, there's no question about that," Boise State coach Chris Petersen said. "He's the whole package."

The key for Oregon, for this game and beyond, is will Masoli pick up where he left off last season, when he scored 14 touchdowns and threw one interception in his final four games? The Ducks won all four of those games, averaging 49 points a game, and -- like most offenses -- as the quarterback goes, so go the Ducks.

"As you watched our offense evolve last season, it was really because of his maturation," Kelly said.

Mark Helfrich, Oregon's new quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator, said that maturation has reached a level where Masoli can not only read the defensive scheme on an option play but also check off to another play, adding yet another dimension to Oregon's offense.

But can Masoli do that against a defense designed to neutralize the spread-option and in such a loud, strange environment? The Ducks have been blaring music out of the Autzen Stadium speakers all week trying to prepare for the noise, which figures to be only greater with the 7:15 p.m. kickoff.

With all day in their Boise hotel to think about last year's game and the task at hand, the Ducks' emotions will be running high, and they must find a way to bottle it and pop the lid off when the season starts. And Masoli must forget what he remembers of last year's game, forget the Sports Illustrated covers and forget the budding Heisman hype.

Only then can he recapture his late-season form. And the Ducks will need it to win.